Puddle muddle delays England’s World Cup qualifier against Poland

England’s crucial football World Cup qualifier against Poland was rained off because no one thought to close the stadium roof.

Wet, wet, wet: Roy Hodgson tests the pitch in Warsaw (Picture: AP)

The match will have to be replayed today because the pitch at the new £400million National Stadium was waterlogged following a day of torrential downpours in Warsaw.The Group H showdown was delayed and then finally called off for the night after torrential rain in the Polish capital left the pitch waterlogged and unplayable.A healthy element of farce was added to proceedings by the fact the National Stadium has a retractable roof, which the Polish authorities chose to leave open during the afternoon and were later unable to close because of the volume of rainfall.After several futile pitch inspections and with the rain continuing to fall referee Gianluca Rocchi called the game off at 9pm UK time.

Stadium announcers were booed as the postponement was delayed until 9pm.Minutes later it was confirmed backroom negotiations had led to an agreement to try again at 4pm today.‘We’re not happy about it but what can you do?’ asked England boss Roy Hodgson .’These acts of God – no one can decide whether it’s going to rain or not.‘We’re disappointed. We prepared well for tonight as no doubt the Poles have too, but now we’ve got to do it all over again. Hopefully we’ll be as prepared tomorrow as we were tonight.’

‘I’m rather hoping they’ll get it [the roof] closed now as quickly as possible and start to do some work on the pitch because at moment the pitch is in very poor condition.‘It’s going to need a lot of attention if it’s going to be playable tomorrow afternoon.’A Polish FA spokeswoman claimed neither the Poland or England representatives nor the Fifa delegate had wanted to make the decision to close the roof earlier in the day.‘None of the sides wanted such a solution,’ said Agnieszka Olejkowska. ‘We knew there would be heavy rain but we could not 100 per cent predict the downpour. We have a system which, if we close the roof, can dry the pitch in 30 minutes.’England fans were likely to be left out of pocket as they changed flights and hotel stays – or would have to miss the rearranged game.The day started well for England, when the Under-21 team qualified for Euro 2013. But their victory in Serbia was overshadowed by ugly scenes and the FA reported several racist incidents to Uefa.